Stepping high

I was at a trade conference a few weeks ago and got a ton of great swag. Every year, I don't know if the vendors plan it or not, but it usually ends up that there is some sort of theme. One year, everyone has fancy pens; the next year, everyone's giving away fabric bags. This was the year of the trinket. The one that I was the most excited about was a pedometer. I've been trying to take the dog on long walks lately and I'm kinda curious as to how far we've been walking (I guess I could get on Google maps and retrace my steps but that seems a bit time-consuming). So I was delighted to have a pedometer...until I tried it out. G&T had warned me that the cheaper ones can be nigh useless and hey, guess what? Freebie crappy pedometer is crappy.

So I was going to do some research on pedometers that actually work when I realized, hey, I have an iPhone now, I bet there is an app for that. Oh, is there ever. I downloaded one and decided that I'd leave it running all day today to see a) if it works and b) how far I generally walk in a standard day at the office (no meetings etc.). So far it mostly works; there are some hiccups that I am willing to believe are user-generated (one of which is that I'm not entirely clear if the pedometer thinks I'm 5.75 feet tall or 5.75 meters tall. While the latter would be physically impossible, it's plausible that the software has me measured via the metric system. I AM AMERICAN WE WILL FOLLOW THE METRIC SYSTEM AT THE SAME TIME WE ALL BECOME FLUENT IN ESPERANTO).

But the eye-opening thing is that so far, and it's the end of the work day for me, it says I've walked about 1000 steps. Now, I think it's missing some of my steps - you know, to make up for the gigantic stride a 15-foot person would apparently have - but still. That is not very impressive at all, especially when they recommend that you try to walk 10,000 steps a day. I have got to up my game.